


Visions in Valhalla

by dreamchaser31



Series: Completely Unexpected [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, F/M, Valhalla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamchaser31/pseuds/dreamchaser31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winifred Barnes and Sarah Rogers couldn't understand when they searched for their sons on their vision screen, all they could see was ice. Their beautiful baby boys needed their mamas to make it in this world, and what does the birth of Miss Stark, and Miss Lewis have to do with their sons?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visions in Valhalla

Winifred Barnes was not a religious woman, nor was she not a religious woman. The early death of her beloved son James left her grasping for any sort of sanity, anyway to make sense of a life taken too early. The letter had said that there was a train accident. There was no body for burial which made grieving that much more difficult.

The war was over, and there was no word from her son’s friend Steve either. Her heart sunk, thinking of her beloved friend Sarah. Steve, her pride and joy, so sickly and noble and brave, off to war despite all warnings not to. 

So Winifred had to move on, and soon Rebecca was married, and she was a grandmother, and she loved all those dear children. And there was church, and she still didn’t know how God could take away her precious husband and son. 

James had a future ahead of him. Maybe he would’ve been in politics. The way he fought for and protected Steve against harm, the way he fought for what was right. He would’ve made a great congressman, and now, his body deceased somewhere in Europe, unfound. 

The years passed and soon it was 1960, and she was sick. She knew she wouldn’t make it. Her final wish was to see her baby boy’s body, once last time. Maybe, just maybe, she’d pray. It never happened. Winifred Barnes dies on a gloomy Saturday morning in 1961, laid to rest beside her husband, and the empty grave of her beloved son.

 

Sarah Rogers greeted her old friend at the gate, and wrapped her once frail arms around the woman. Sarah was vibrant, and alive?

“Where am I?”

“It’s called, Valhalla.”

“Never heard of it.”

Sarah is all smiles as she leads her friend to chair, and in front of her is a vision field of earth, projecting a sheet of ice. “That’s my Stevie. He’s alive. He made it through the plane crash.”

“Plane crash?”

Sarah nods wistfully, “He was saving the world.”

“How does this work?”

“You just look for your deepest wish. A gift from the all-mother.”

“All-mother?”

“Queen of the Universe.”

“Now I know I’m dreaming.”

“Not a dream. She’s the queen. Her husband is the King. They have two sons, maybe ten years old.”

“So like, they’re God?”

“I’m not sure. But they haven’t done me wrong yet.” 

Winifred stares at the screen, inhaling when the vision screen turns to black and pulls up another picture. It’s Rebecca, and her children, at her grave site.

“They’re mourning,” Sarah whispers. “It’s natural Winny.”

Winifred smiles at the old nickname, suddenly this is becoming a little more real, and she focuses again, and the screen fades to a freezer looking machine with a window at top and, she gasps, “James! That’s James! My baby! What happened to him? Why is he there? Help him! Help him please! Is he dead?”

Sarah shakes her head. “You would not be able to see him if he were. He’d be here somewhere.”

Winifred sobs, “He’s alive? My baby’s alive?” The older woman collapsed into Sarah’s arms “He’s alive. Oh James.”

 

Valhalla was the perfect version of what she wanted her after life to be like. Comfortable, peaceful, and she was able to see her loved ones anytime she wanted. She kept a calendar she made herself and marked each turn of the earth year, time seemed to flow differently up here. And while she would continue to look in on her children, nothing would change other than Rebecca had grandchildren now. Sarah couldn’t imagine Steve being alive that long in ice, and Winifred couldn’t either with the matter of her own son. 

The thunder rolls as they watch Rebecca chase after one of her grandchildren and the woman laugh. “It would seem that the eldest prince has come into his power, then,” Sarah smiled as she watched the baby girl give her grandmother all that she could while trying not to get caught.

“Who would think to give thunder as a power?”

Sarah shrugs and smiles. “Maybe he’s got a temper.”

 

Rebecca had passed twenty five years after the death of her mother, and arrived in Valhalla instantly. The reunion was bittersweet and she had questions about the vision field. The mothers showed her Steve, and she cried when she saw her brother. Nothing had changed. There was just ice. 

 

The mothers and Rebecca kept track of their sons, but nothing had changed. Sarah explained her grief. “I’m not sure what’s going on! Why is there only ice? This isn’t a life! This isn’t living!”

 

One night, earth year, Winifred 1987, the visions bounced between her son, and a woman in labor. She woke the other women up. “What is this? What’s changing? Who’s that woman?”

The women spent hours watching as Bucky didn’t move, and the woman gave birth to a baby girl named Jane Maria Stark-Foster, leaving Rebecca muttering. “She’s a Stark? What does she have to do with us?” 

The women watched as Howard and Maria, and their son who seemed to be the infants father welcomed the baby girl into the family, and the women couldn’t help but smile. 

“Nothin’ like a little one to make the world seem whole again.”

 

They watched day by day as the infant grew, and watched as Maria Stark coddled and nurtured the girl in place of her absent mother. The girl was smart, much like her grandfather and her own father. The little girl was talking in full sentences by age one, despite still using a pacifier. The women still couldn’t figure out what this little girl had to do with them. 

 

1990 rolled in and Bucky was awake and the women were crying. The metal arm left Winifred moaning. That her little boy had been hurt breaking her already spurned heart. He was somewhere in Russia, and spoke Russian to the men who were talking to him. Bucky was big, he was mean, and he was very, very dangerous. They much preferred watching little Jane as she helped her grandfather work through a complicated problem. 

“What’s the first element, Janey?” The two year old squeals and claps her hands in the most adorable way. 

“Hy-gen!”

Maria Stark is heard in the background, “No way! You already ruined our son with science. This girl is mine!”

“But honey! Look! She’s so happy!”

 

The women chuckle and check in on Steve in hopes that since Bucky was awake that he might be too, but nothing had changed. 

 

1991 rolls around and there’s stirring on Steve’s side of things, another woman in labor, delivering another baby girl. This one to two parents who the women did not know in a small town in Virginia. They named her Darcy, and she was proving to be a very loud little girl at only a couple of hours old. 

“You think these girls are connected to Bucky and Stevie in some way,” Sarah asks one starry night.

“Like maybe they’re grandchildren?”

“No. Like maybe they’ll be a bigger part of our son’s lives at one point?”

“I don’t believe in visions of the future, Sarah.”

Sarah and Rebecca sigh, and go back to watching the very noisy newborn, and the very studious two year old. 

 

Rebecca cries out one night and the women rush to her side. “He’s going to kill them! Howard and Maria! He’s, he’s going to kill them! Bucky has been sent to kill them!”

“Turn it off! Find Jane! Darcy! Somebody!”

 

Steve was still ice, Bucky was back in the freezer and Darcy was content at her mother’s breast, for the time being. That girl was as loud as they come. 

Little Jane was dressed looking very adorable in a pretty dress and bows and looking for her father in a very large house. They watch the nanny grab the toddlers hand and try to pull her away from her grandfather’s old lab, but Tony Stark comes out and scoops her up, and she’s so happy to see her daddy. 

“Daddy.”

“I’m here, baby. Looks like it’s just you and me kid.” The look in Stark’s eyes left the women weeping, and they wondered how Bucky could do such a thing, and why was he again in that damn freezer?

 

It was 1996 and Darcy was starting kindergarten, and Jane was, well, “Why they sending a nine year old to high school anyway? She’s too young.” Bucky and Steve were still very cold. 

 

The new millennium saw the girls, Darcy in fourth grade and Jane in her second year of college. “I don’t know why we keep seeing these girls, but I feel like they’re family now,” Sarah says one day. 

Winifred and Rebecca couldn’t help but degree, and cheered loudly when Jane finished her bachelor’s a year later. “Too smart. Too damn smart.”

“Watch your language, Rebecca Barnes,” Sarah scolds.

It’s 2010 and Jane has had her doctorate for six years now, and they watched each day hoping beyond hope that these two women were somehow connected to their boys in some way. Bucky had been active a couple of years back, shooting an engineer through a woman with red hair, then he was put back in the freezer, and Winifred mourned her little boy. 

“He’s a good boy. He would never do this on purpose. Lord let Jane be the one. Please. He needs saved.”

Sarah rubs her back and watches as her own son is cut out in a block of ice and taken above into some tent. 

Darcy finding her way to Jane gave the women even more hope only to have it shattered as they watch Jane fall for a person who fell from the sky. 

Sarah gasps, “The prince. That’s the prince!”

Winifred hides her tears. Her baby boy didn’t have a chance now. 

They watched as little by little the ice was melted away from Steve’s body, and Rebecca says it first. “When did he get to be so big?”

“An experiment,” Sarah knew of course. She’d been watching her boy for far longer than they had. 

And when one of the people in medical jackets proclaimed, “This man is still alive!” The women cheered and hugged, like never before.

 

 

Aliens were taking over New York, and a group called the Avengers had formed, including Sarah’s Steve, and their beloved little Janey’s father Tony Stark, as Iron Man, and the man Winifred was growing to resent as Jane pined after him, Thor, the god of Thunder. 

“He can take that hammer and sh-“ 

“Winny,” Sarah exclaimed.

 

Holes were opening up over London, and Jane was involved along with Darcy and Thor. The women watched hopeless. Winifred refused to watch anymore. 

 

“He’s back. He’s fighting Steve mama,” They watched as the best friends battled against each other, and cried when Steve saw the man behind the mask. And cursed fate when Steve fell from the hell carrier. And cheered when Bucky dove in after him, and walked away from whoever was controlling him. 

And they were quiet when Jane announced that she was pregnant to her father. 

“No. No. No,” Winifred could only shake her head, and Rebecca could only rub her mother’s back. Sarah sighed when she saw her own baby boy brighten when a certain blue eyed brunette force fed him a sandwich. 

 

Bucky was still in hiding when Jane went into labor and delivered a beautiful girl with Steve and Darcy and Tony by her side. With no sign of Thor, Winnifred perked up. “Where is he?”

“Something’s happening.”

And it was surreal that 25 years before, they were watching Jane be born. And they watched as she named her daughter Seraphina Maria Stark. And they watched as Thor came down and met his daughter with all the pride, and sadness in the world. 

They watched as he told her that he had to marry a woman named Sif, and that he was sorry. And they watched as Tony and Steve closed ranks over the tired, new mother, and allowed her to grieve the relationship she’d worked so hard for the last four years. 

And Winifred cried, because the girl she loved like a daughter, was heartbroken, and she couldn’t see what the future had in store for any of them. 

 

Rebecca and Sarah watched and laughed a lot as Steve and Darcy dated and fell in love. The couple was as goofy as can be, and while Darcy was still a very loud, very talkative woman, Steve mellowed her out. Winifred couldn’t help but wonder, “They’re perfect for each other.”

She searched for her baby boy and found him outside a familiar building. “He’s there. Girls. He’s at the tower! Finally!”

 

Bucky was quiet and Winifred was at her wits end. “Talk to them! They want to help you! Talk to Jane! She’s perfect for you!”

The women wept when Jane placed her newborn girl on Bucky’s chest, and he responded to the infant in kind gentle tones, and then-

“My baby boy. He’s crying. He feels! He knows!”

 

Winifred watches as the little Stevie who use to race through her house falls in love with Darcy Lewis, and hope flares in her chest. “It’s Jane. He needs Jane. She’s the one.”

 

Little Seraphina is one now, and Bucky is there for her party. The women watch with hope as Bucky causes mischief with the little girl. “It’s Bucky, ma. It’s really him!” Winifred watches as Jane looks at her son fondly, and she’s content. 

 

Seraphina’s second birthday Jane let Bucky take Sera out, and Winifred couldn’t help but sing out. “She trusts him with her! She’s the one! I knew it!” 

Steve uses Seraphina to help him propose to Darcy, and they all cry, when the little girl hugs her Uncle’s legs, and holds up the ring, saying “Peese,” with the most perfect pout the women have ever seen. 

Winifred smiles. “That’s my girl, Seraphina.”

 

 

“Buck’s having girl trouble’s ma. Darcy is helping him. They’re planning a set up.”

“With who?”

“With Jane!”

“She’s too smart for that!”

“They’re having fun,” Sarah looks on fondly, and laughs when her son calls the two out on it. 

 

“THEY KISSED!” Rebecca was invested in her brother’s love story. 

 

Winifred was worried that her baby boy’s relationship was going to be over before it begun. “They’re fighting. She’s scared of him.” They all held hands as they watched it play out, and sighed in relief when Jane stepped into his arms. 

 

“She called him Papa! Sera is calling Bucky papa! Jane doesn’t know how it’s happening!” Winifred is alight with joy as she watches the little girl play with Bucky at the park, tumbling in the sand, and reaching for him. 

“Papa, up! Peese!” 

Bucky’s laughter is deep, and wonderful as he lifts the tiny girl in his arms. They fit, like father and daughter. And Winifred’s family got a little bigger that day. 

 

“He proposed. The ring! Oh Ma! It’s beautiful. Looks expensive! She said yes!” Rebecca’s eyes are misty as she watches the scene, before turning it onto her own great grand-children. 

Winifred smiles as the news and sits back with her friend. “Our boys did well, Sarah.”

“Our boys did great, Winny!”

"They're pregnant," Sarah exclaims. "That boy of mine needs to be put over my knee right now!"

"Things are different now, Aunt Sarah."

"Don't care. No son of mine should be getting his girl in trouble like this until after they're married. 

"Jane's pregnant too. Twins they say."

"James needs a good poppin' too!"

 

"They're getting married ma! All four of them, a double wedding today! Oh those girls look beautiful! And look at Sera!"

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy!


End file.
